The last line of defence against Trump 2.0: Nikki Haley (and 91 felony charges)

The former president seems on course to win the Republican Party’s nomination once again, writes Sean O’Grady. But will Haley emerge as a dark horse – and help the US avert disaster?

Republican candidate Nikki Haley, 52, was the US ambassador to the United Nations, so she knows Trump’s flaws better than most (AFP via Getty Images)

Right now, the only thing standing between us and the global catastrophe of a Trump presidency is Nikki Haley.

Not Joe Biden, whose shortcomings as a candidate are well documented. Nor, of course, Ron DeSantis, a man who makes Trump seem a paragon of shrinking modesty. No. It’s Haley. That’s it. Her or Donald. That’s the choice – and Americans who fear another Trump presidency of chaos, fire and fury should really consider supporting her.

If you think that US democracy and the stability of the world can withstand another onslaught by this vengeful man-baby, then go right ahead and vote for the Maga candidate. If you think America needs a real change from perpetual gerontocracy, then you need to do everything you can to get Haley nominated. Doing so could save the Republican Party, America and the world.

Of course, it’s impertinent and probably counter-productive for foreigners to offer Americans advice on the leadership of their own great nation. It easily sounds condescending, and if they wish to put America first for a change, that’s their choice.

All the same, the whole world has a stake in this election, and a Trump presidency would hurt us all. Besides, it is Haley herself, like many other Americans, who thinks Trump is unsuited to the role. She worked with him as US ambassador to the United Nations, so she knows his flaws better than most.

Personally, I’m afraid I tend to the view expressed by Trump himself in his interview with Tucker Carlson only last August, when he discussed the events of 6 January 2021, and was asked about the possibility of “open conflict”, if not civil war: “I don’t know, because I don’t know what, you know – I can say this: There’s a level of passion that I’ve never seen. There’s a level of hatred that I’ve never seen. That’s probably a bad combination.”

On that, Trump was and is right – bigly – and that’s all the more reason to prevent him being president of the United States. Haley, they can be sure, will not try to destroy the Constitution.

Fortunately, Haley isn’t intimidated by Trump, which is a qualification for high office in itself, because we know the punishment that he and his devout followers in his undeniably substantial base of support can mete out to anyone who gets in Trump’s way. They’ll even invade the Capitol for him and try to overthrow the government, so chucking some abuse at Haley’s no big deal. They do, indeed, “fight like hell” when prompted to.

Yet Haley is unflinching, and rightly pledges to carry on and on and on. It’s obviously true that Trump is the favourite for the nomination, and it could all be over in a couple of weeks. It’s not immediately obvious that Haley has the funds to sustain a campaign, even if she’s obviously got the spirit to do so. She might not do so well even in her own sweet home state of South Carolina; but she did rather better than expected in New Hampshire, even if she still lost.

The sourness of Trump’s victory speech suggests that she has more momentum than he would like, and he resents it – he’s never been great at disguising his emotions or his all-too-brittle ego. So she is still in the race, and there are a couple of very good reasons why she has to stay in for as long as she can.

The first is that she is now the only challenger to Trump, that he definitely needs challenging, and that something he says or does could alter the dynamics of this contest. Admittedly nothing he ever says and does has ever been enough to alienate the base. As he himself said in 2016: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

So, something might turn up; and Haley has to demonstrate that there is an alternative, and that she can attest the kind of independent and swing voters that the Republicans need to recapture the White House (legitimately) and oust Biden.

What could turn up to change things? Rather more promisingly, Trump faces 91 assorted felony charges, and any or all of these could make his candidature unsustainable on any reasonable view; the United States cannot be led by a convicted criminal or led from a prison cell.

In such circumstances, hardly unthinkable, there has to be a clear alternative to Trump the party can turn to. If they do need to draft someone to replace Trump, then it makes it easier to dump him if there is an obvious alternative. The stronger Haley’s support, the less secure Trump is as a candidate – and he knows it.

All that said, Haley is no liberal. She is a social conservative and once advocated using special forces to invade Mexico to deal with the migration crisis. Her greatest weakness as a candidate is her defiantly pro-life/anti-abortion stance. Haley has said she’d be OK with an anti-abortion law. This is popular in certain Republican circles, but in the wider electorate, and obviously among women voters, the loss of their rights to bodily autonomy is something that overrides many other considerations.

Biden and Kamala Harris are weaponising the issue, and Trump is vulnerable on it as the general election approaches. If Haley really wants to win the nomination, a more enlightened, pragmatic pro-choice stance would help her pick up support in places long abandoned by the Republicans. If she ever got her party’s nomination, she might even find herself forcing Biden off the Democrat ticket as a panicky response to her youthful appeal (she’s 52).

We might yet even find Haley going head-to-head with Harris. America would suddenly be faced with a choice of two vigorous women of colour rather than, as now, the political equivalent of Statler and Waldorf. That would be good for America, and for all its friends in the world.